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Stop Windows 10 From Automatically Installing Updates

You shut-down or restarted your system and it began installing updates. After sitting through the mind numbing long period that Windows takes to install updates before it actually shuts down, you have to wait for it to finish installing them when you boot your system again. If this is something that happens to you too often, you can have Windows 10 notify you when it’s ready to install updates so that it’s opt-in installation instead of automatic and forced. Here’s how.

Open the Settings app and go to the Update & Security group of settings. In the Windows Update tab, click the ‘Advanced options’ link. From the ‘Choose how updates are installed’ drop-down, select the ‘Notify to schedule restart’ option.

win10-updates

If left to install automatically, Windows 10 will normally check what times you don’t use your system (periods of inactivity) and set updates to install at that time. It’s a smart feature that takes advantage of your downtime however, you may still be faced with a waiting period while the update installation completes when you next boot your system.

With Windows set to notify you before installing updates, you can also choose which ones you want to install and which ones you don’t want to install. You will have to choose them from the Control Panel as the Settings app itself doesn’t give you too many options in that regard but this is a pretty easy way to stop any unwanted updates from being installed on your PC.

4 Comments

  1. As far as I can tell, after you postpone the updates a couple of times, Microsoft takes it upon itself to force an update on you. Maybe a smarter user than me could find a new postponement mechanism, but I couldn’t, and I just lost 90 minutes of my working day. Thanks Redmond.

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  3. I am unable to find the update selection interface in Control Panel, can you point me in right direction?
    Thanks.

  4. this is automatic restart and notify before restart. If you want restore older method like windows 8.1, windows 7.
    go to Group Policy and change.

    P/s: You can’t choose what package you want install like older windows version. Using WUShowHideUpdate to hide package you don’t want install.